Killer plants on display

Paul Van Dort and his wife, Heidi, don't have insect problems at their house. Their plants take care of that.

Van Dort's plants aren't the ordinary kind.

By Kris Winterton

Paul Van Dort and his wife, Heidi, don't have insect problems at their house. Their plants take care of that.

Van Dort's plants aren't the ordinary kind. As a hobby, he raises carnivorous plants - the kind of plants that trap and "eat" insects. Some plants from his carnivorous plant collection are in an exhibit at the Dow Gardens.

"My plants don't have to catch insects to survive, but they do better if they do," Van Dort said. "Most of them grow in swampy soil that's low on nutrients. Trapping insects is their way of getting extra nutrients.

"Different plants trap insects in different ways. Some plants suck water insects in. Some pitchers hold one gallon of fluid - they can even catch a rat or other rodent."

The mysterious Venus flytrap plant has become popular and is grown in many greenhouses. Van Dort owns several Venus flytraps, some of which are in the Dow Gardens exhibit.

Seventeen different species of his carnivorous plants are represented, all of them packed into a converted aquarium. His plants do well in terrariums, he said, because they need a moist environment. He has seven good-sized tanks full of plants at home.

Living on Sanford Lake, Van Dort doesn't have to make a deliberate effort to feed his plants. "I just open the door and the bugs come in all summer," he said.

Asked why he's fascinated with carnivorous plants, Van Dort said they're beautiful flowering plants. He enjoys looking at their foliage and flowers, some of which resemble orchids.

He, Heidi and the couple's 3-year-old daughter enjoy watching the plants catch insects. Venus flytraps snap shut when a live insect goes into their leaves.

A web page of the Botanical Society of America said the leaves have short, stiff hairs called trigger hairs on them. When anything touches these hairs enough to bend them, the two lobes of the leaves snap shut, trapping whatever is inside. The trap will shut in less than a second. If the object isn't food but is something else, such as a stone or a nut, the trap will reopen in about 12 hours and "spit" it out.

Little wonder that Van Dort became fascinated with carnivorous plants as a boy, when his parents got a large pitcher plant, hoping to alleviate their house's ant problem. "The ants walked right into the plant - hundreds of ants," he said. "I was fascinated to see that plants could actually catch and digest animals. The more I read about them, the more interested I became."

He acquired some plants and learned how to care for them. In junior high school he entered a carnivorous plant in a science fair contest and won Best of Show. That recognition fueled his interest, and his collection grew.

One of his favorite resource books is "The Savage Garden," by Peter D'Amato.

According to Van Dort, there are more than 500 known species of carnivorous plants globally. Although many people think they grow deep in the jungle, a wider variety of them grows in the United States than in most other areas of the world.

Varieties of carnivorous plants that grow in the U.S. include sundews, butterworts, North American pitcher plants, cobra plants and Venus flytraps. The only places in the world that Venus flytraps grow in the wild are North Carolina and South Carolina.

Van Dort's hobby has him in its clutches, and it isn't about to let go.

"I've been doing this since I was 8, and I'm 40 now," he said.

People may see the carnivorous plant exhibit at the Dow Gardens visitor center through the end of October. Dow Gardens is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, and will be open from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m for the rest of the month. There is no fee for viewing the exhibit.